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San Francisco coach Jim Harbaugh celebrates with Colin Kaepernick after the quarterback's touchdown run against Green Bay. Harbaugh's gamble to stick with Kaepernick once Alex Smith was cleared to return has paid off. / Ben Margot/Associated Press

The 49ers' Colin Kaepernick has passed for 496 yards and run for 202 in the playoffs. / Derick E. Hingle/USA TODAY Sports

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NEW ORLEANS -- Jim Harbaugh isn't the first coach to change quarterbacks on his way to the Super Bowl, but he may be the gutsiest.

Bill Belichick switched from Drew Bledsoe to Tom Brady early in the first of his three championship seasons after Bledsoe suffered internal bleeding from a hit on the field, but the Patriots were coming off a 5-11 year and Bledsoe was at the back end of his career.

In 1999, Kurt Warner replaced Trent Green and led the Rams to the Super Bowl, but Dick Vermeil had few other choices after Green suffered a preseason knee injury.

Harbaugh turned to Colin Kaepernick after Alex Smith suffered a concussion in a Week 10 game against the Rams, but his gamble to stick with Kaepernick once Smith was cleared to return was ripe for dissection.

Smith led the 49ers to the NFC championship game a season ago and was a few weeks removed from one of the most proficient passing games (18-for-19) in NFL history. Kaepernick, a second-round pick out of Nevada in 2011, had attempted 14 NFL passes before Smith's injury.

Reinstating Smith as the starter would have been the safe move for a team deep on defense and with one of the NFL's best running games. But Harbaugh is anything but safe.

"I thought it was a unique situation, viewed it that way when it happened," Harbaugh said. "My experience had always been that when it comes to playing the best quarterback, or playing the quarterback with the hot hand, it was choosing between two guys that were struggling, at least in my own personal experience. That was far from the case that we were looking at, at the time. Two quarterbacks that were playing extremely well and made the decision that we thought was best for our team."

That choice, like brother John Harbaugh's late-season call as Ravens coach to fire offensive coordinator Cam Cameron and replace him with Jim Caldwell, has proven masterful.

John Harbaugh said his thinking behind that move was "part of a progression to become as good as we could possibly be."

"He laid the foundation for what we're going through right now," John Harbaugh said of Cameron. "He did a lot of hard work and had a lot of good ideas that helped to build that. We felt we had to do something to jumpstart us for a lot of different reasons. Whatever those reasons are, it was successful."

The Ravens hit a lull under Cameron, losing back-to-back December games -- the second in overtime -- and settling for too many field goals on offense. Under Caldwell, their downfield passing attack showed immediate improvement, and they've averaged nearly 30 points per game in the playoffs.

The 49ers' offensive transformation has been even more dramatic with Kaepernick under center.

They opened up their offense to take advantage of Kaepernick's unique athleticism, incorporating more pistol formation and read-option into their playbook, and they've shown the ability to strike quickly in the passing game.

"We saw what Alex Smith was," NFL Network analyst Warren Sapp said. "You know all my guys on the set, they're offensive guys. 'Just give me the damn ball and everything's going to be all right.' So I tell them, the game plan facing the San Francisco 49ers when Alex Smith was the quarterback was real simple: Dump the game on him. When you come into the game and Kaepernick's the quarterback, you have to go, 'Hey, you got contain, you got contain. Yo, who's got the alley?' There's so many other variables that come into the mix. He makes them dynamic."

But can he make them Super Bowl champs -- and is that something Smith could not?

"That's hypothetical. I won't get into hypotheticals," 49ers offensive coordinator Greg Roman said. "Anything's possible. We were one play away from it last year, so I don't know."

More Details: Super Bowl XLVII

Matchup: San Francisco (13-4-1) vs. Baltimore (13-6).

When: 6:30 p.m. Sunday.

Where: New Orleans.

TV: CBS (Channel 62 in Detroit).

Line: 49ers by 3?1/2.

By comparison

The 49ers and Ravens each made bold moves during the season. San Francisco stuck with the younger and more athletic Colin Kaepernick at quarterback after Alex Smith was cleared following a concussion in November. Baltimore fired offensive coordinator Cam Cameron on Dec. 10 and replaced him with Jim Caldwell.